


Carried

by hawkeward



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gender-Neutral Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeward/pseuds/hawkeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm's staff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carried

v.  
Malcolm carries the shape of it in his head and heart long before he carves it out of supple blond wood and carries it in his hands. Worn smooth with use, it is a walking stick, a weapon, a badge of honor—the mark of a mage even as it marks the freedom he has made for himself. He carries it as he carries his children, sprawled across broad shoulders sturdy enough for burdens and joys alike. When illness finally robs him of skill and strength and breath, it stands vigil within the reach of hands now too weak to hold it. And at the last, his daughter carries it away from his grave.

iv.  
Bethany carries it from the ashes of Lothering, across the sea and past black cliff walls to a city choked with chains. It doesn't fit her hands as it did its maker’s, but serves just as well, protecting and healing and building a home in an unfriendly land. She carries it into the Deep Roads, hope light in her heart. Hawke carries it back to their mother, alone.

iii.  
Leandra carries it from Lowtown to her childhood home, a memento of life between the two to lean silent against a wall. When all that remains in the estate is the last of her children and a grief so great it overflows four unfillable spaces, it waits to be taken up again. In the end, Hawke carries it from the shrine of the bedroom and gives it to the renegade who reminded Bethany of their father, thinking that is close enough. 

ii.  
Anders carries it to issue a declaration of war against the world that has backed him into a corner from which he cannot escape. He raps it hard on the stone of a market street, punctuation for a final manifesto written in red sky and flame.

i.  
Hawke leaves it where it falls in the dust and pooling blood, and walks away empty-handed.


End file.
